No Rain, No Pain?

I wasn’t going to post again until next week, as I’m sure that people will easily get sick and tired of hearing me rant on about the usual (i.e. school, teachers, discipline, Americans, etc) for too long, but I think that this morning’s rain storm has given me a rather good writing opportunity.

It wasn’t the biggest, longest or loudest storm I have ever experienced, but it definitely seemed like the wettest. It was really strange, because during the 11 minute Assembly there was absolutely no rain, and then five minutes later there was more water on the campus than in the Baltic Sea. I was in the library at the moment that the rain became really intense, and I decided to wait until it died down a bit before making a break to MacRobert. Now, you have to understand that the only people in the library at the time were Ross Friend and Pieter Strydom doing accounting homework, and a couple of Form 1s listening to a song by (and worth) 50 cents about how many times he had been shot (or somthing like that). As neither group offered much in the form of entertainment, I cut my wait short and decided to sod the rain and run for it. So, out of the library I ran like hell and high water (oh, the irony) back to MacRobert house. When I got there I assessed the damages. My blazer was soaked, my trousers were soaked, my shirt was soaked and for some very strange reason there was about three and a half litres of water in my shoes, so every time I took a step my feet made a funny squelching noise. So I got to my study, emptied my shoes and wrung out my blazer (an action which feels very strange and unnatural). I honestly thought the worst was over so I put on some dry things and walked out of my study...

I was slightly worried when I saw ‘Zeech’ (who lives in the same wing as me) staring at the floor and swearing. I thought he was going mad, until I saw just what he was staring at. There was a rapidly expanding puddle on the floor, the source of which was somewhere under Anthony’s door. The fact that Anthony was not present at the time caused somewhat of a dilemma. By the time we found him the puddle was not so much a puddle as a lake. He ran into the wing, looked at the puddle and said s***. Then he looked at his door and said s*** again. As he opened his door I saw the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. A pair of flip-flops floated (and I mean floated!) out of his door and down the corridor. He said s*** again. What had happened was that a large pool had formed outside and the water was flowing in through the bottom of the 'outer-leading' door. After about half an hour of swearing and bailing out (doesn’t that usually happen on ships?), things finally calmed down a bit. I was now able to see what else the rain had done. For a start, let’s just say that we won’t be watching the first team Cricket on the Oval on Saturday, so much as the first team Rowing. All the fields were flooded. I was told that the field next to the Spruit was especially flooded, so I went to check it out. As a result I saw the strangest thing I’ve ever seen since the floating sandals half an hour before: people were swimming on the field. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t swimming generally done in a pool or something?

And then, just as instantly as it had arrived, the rain stopped. Granted, there was still a light trickle, which could (I suppose) be called rain, but (next to the downpour) that would be like comparing a small, dripping tap to Niagara Falls. Although the rain has stopped, I don’t think this is over yet. For one thing, there is still a huge amount of water under the carpets in the Matric Wing in MacRobert, and although I’m no expert, I have a slight feeling that that will soon start to smell a bit.

On another matter, I think that something should be done about the amount of adults, especially teachers, who are influencing students into doing really rebellious things (oh, I don’t know... getting tattoos, for example?) Anybody who has any comments or queries (with specific reference to the passage named INK) please feel free to contact me.

Hosken